Haruna Iddrisu warns SHS heads against off-system CSSPS admissions

The Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu, has warned heads of Senior High Schools (SHS), Senior High Technical Schools (SHTS) and Technical and Vocational Institutes (TVIs) against admitting students outside the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS).

He cautioned that heads who admit students manually or through arrangements outside the approved placement process will face sanctions after the Ministry validates enrolment data.

The warning is contained in a statement issued through the Directors-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Ghana TVET Service on September 7, 2026.

Iddrisu said the directive was necessary to protect the integrity of the placement system and ensure that enrolment figures accurately reflected the number of students officially placed in each school.

He said the Ministry had identified significant discrepancies in previous placement cycles between the number of students placed through the CSSPS and the number actually enrolled, particularly in 2025.

According to him, some school heads had admitted students outside the approved system, in some cases after under-declaring available vacancies.

Iddrisu said such practices undermined the placement process, created inconsistencies in enrolment data and distorted planning and budget projections.

He added that the discrepancies could also affect the timely disbursement of funds to schools.

SHS Placement Fraud: We will fish out culprits and deal with them – Haruna Iddrisu warns

For the 2026 placement cycle, the CSSPS has been enhanced with an enrolment component intended to provide an end-to-end system for placing and enrolling students.

The Ministry said once vacancies had been declared, validated and confirmed on the system, schools would not be allowed to expand their vacancies.

“The exact number of students placed through the CSSPS shall constitute the approved enrolment for each school. No school head is permitted to admit any student outside the CSSPS,” the statement said.

It further warned that any head found to have admitted students outside the CSSPS, following confirmation through enrolment data validation, would be sanctioned in accordance with applicable regulations and the Code of Ethics.

The directive forms part of government’s broader efforts to improve access to secondary education and strengthen the management of enrolment in second-cycle institutions.

Iddrisu also linked strict compliance with the directive to the objectives of the World Bank-funded Secondary Education Transformation for Access, Relevance and Results for Jobs Project (STARR-J), which seeks to expand and improve teaching and learning infrastructure.

The Ministry released the 2026 SHS placement on September 4, 2026, for 620,141 candidates who sat the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) from May 4 to May 11, 2026.

Under this year’s placement process, candidates were allowed to see their BECE results before selecting schools and were required to choose two Category ‘A’ schools – one boarding and one day school within their district.

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